


Offer No Absolutes

by mortalcreator



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alastair Being an Asshole, Also known as the Author doesn't know shit about Enochian either, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Priests, Author abuse of half-known latin incantations from the series, Author doesn't know shit about actual exorcisms lol, Bible, Big Brother Gabriel, Castiel's Pimpmobile, Child Neglect, Demonic Possession, Devil's Trap, Dysfunctional Family, Enochian, Exorcism, Farmer Dean, Farmer Sam, Gabriel Being Gabriel, Gen, Holy Water, Human Castiel, Human Gabriel, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Death in Childbirth, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Like when is he not, Lilith mentioned, M/M, Mass Character Deaths, Minor Character Death, Pastor Jim is mentioned, Pop Culture, Possessed Dean, Possession, Priest Castiel, Priest Gabriel, Sassy Gabriel, Sassy Sam Winchester, Swearing, The Author Regrets Everything, The Author abuses pop culture references, The Author doesn't know how to tag shit, Verbal Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-28
Updated: 2015-03-28
Packaged: 2018-03-19 20:27:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3623175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mortalcreator/pseuds/mortalcreator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Priest!AU, inspired by a friend's post. </p><p>Fathers Castiel and Gabriel live a relatively quiet, peaceful life in a small town in South Dakota, until they get a call from a Sam Winchester. His brother is acting strangely and the church is his last hope.</p><p>On Tumblr: (<a href="http://mortalcreator.tumblr.com/post/114719243824/offer-no-absolutes">x</a>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Offer No Absolutes

**Author's Note:**

> This is based off of [tricksterangelgabriel's]() posts ([x](http://tricksterangelgabriel.tumblr.com/post/113096760605/priest-castiel-and-priest-gabriel-getting-an))([x](http://tricksterangelgabriel.tumblr.com/post/113096910650/arent-you-a-little-short-to-do-an-exorcism)) and my tags ([x](http://mortalcreator.tumblr.com/post/113107914094/tricksterangelgabriel-priest-castiel-and#notes))([x](http://tricksterangelgabriel.tumblr.com/post/113511740443/tricksterangelgabriel-priest-castiel-and)). I’ve been given permission to write this, and I just wanted to say thank you for this opportunity (also: I’M SO SORRY). It’s my first time writing anything to do with priests or Christianity in general, so if there’s anything I’ve gotten wrong about that or anything else, please let me know and I’ll fix it immediately!  
> Bonus points if you listen to [Take Me to Church](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYSVMgRr6pw) (which is where the title came from and was basically my playlist for writing this entire thing) while reading this.

_~~I have no control over the beast~~ _

**_~~I never did~~ _ **

Sam flinched as Dean, bored in the devil’s trap that Sam had made, shouted at him again. This time he was blaming Sam for their mother’s death. This was it. Sam closed the laptop with more force than necessary and stood up to walk to the kitchen.

“Where’re you goin’, Sam?” De―the _thing_ that was inside of his brother asked with that stupid smirk still on his face, cocking his head in a way that Dean never did. Sam simply leveled a dark look at whatever was wearing his older brother, and walked out of the study.

He nearly collapsed in the kitchen, but managed to snag a stool to sit on. He couldn’t do this much longer. In fact, some part of him was surprised he’d managed this long at all. Not just through the rather painful revelation that demons were, in fact, real. It was just―Dean and he’d been through so much together. Living out here in Bum Fuck Nowhere, South Dakota, after letting go of a resentful father who’d never really gotten over the death (or as he called it, the murder) of their mother, Dean and Sam had lived in each other’s pockets for so long that they weren’t really sure where one of them ended and the other began. They’d done so many things together…and now this horrific boundary was between them.

Sam was at the end of his rope, so he reached for the last bit of hope he had left.

He picked up the phone, and slowly dialed a number he’d tacked onto the side of the fridge a long time ago.

* * *

Father Castiel was mulling over a King James edition of the Bible. As one of the two priests in charge of their non-denominational church, he felt that it was important to get different perspectives, so they had several different editions. Of course, Father Gabriel called him a, what was it? Ah, a “boring nerd” who had “no respect for the art of ‘winging’ sermons”.

He was making some notes about Matthew 8:5-13 when Gabriel sauntered in like he was a star in one of those reality shows he seemed to love so much.

“Hey, Cassie! What’s up with you? Still cramming for the Bible class you aced…what, 20? 30 years ago? Something like that,” Gabriel said in his rambling, devil-may-care tone. Castiel just sighed and cut straight to the chase.

“What is it this time, Gabriel?” he asked, pulling out a New Revised Standard Version and opening it to Matthew. Gabriel rarely liked to interrupt him whenever he was doing this, simply because Castiel wouldn’t respond nearly as much as he would at the dinner table.

“Right, right! Gotcha,” Gabriel said, clapping his hands together. “We gotta suit up, oh brother mine. Just got a call from a…” The golden-haired priest looked down at his hands, where he had undoubtedly written the information on his palm like a teenage girl. “A Sam Winchester. Asking us to do a little exorcism for him. Guy lives out in the asscrack of nowhere, and it sounds like his brother’s gone darkside, so he wants us to sprinkle some holy water, make some benedictions, the whole song and dance. Poor guy sounded like he was gonna cry if I said no, soo…” Gabriel trailed off, making a hopeful expression. Castiel sighed again.

“Gabriel…I'll continue to pray for the day that you finally gain some semblance of human delicacy,” he said, but Gabriel’s goal had already been achieved, as proved when Castiel bookmarked his spot and pushed his seat back. He put hands over his eyes, partially to rest them and partially to prepare himself for what was coming. _Lord, give me strength…_

“Still waiting for your answer, bro,” Gabriel said. “So? Are we gonna go all Constantine on this ‘demon’s’ ass, or what?”

“Alright, Gabriel,” Castiel said, finally. “Let’s do this.” He flipped open the King James Bible again, searching for the right verses. “Uh, we’re going to need holy water, crucifixes, Bibles…”

“Way ahead of you, dear brother,” Gabriel said, hefting a duffle bag onto his shoulder. “I packed everything we might need, and then some. You know me, always prepared.” He wiggled his eyebrows, and turned on his heel. “Come on, Cassie, we’ve got some dark spirits to boot out!”

Castiel sighed, for the third time. While he loved his adopted brother, being with him was often…exhausting. Still, he followed his brother into the garage and started up his old 1978 Lincoln.

* * *

“The last turn off, Cassie! I told you, turn off of Exit 73!” Gabriel said, torn between ripping the map and instructions he’d carefully printed off of Google Maps (thank God for the internet) and ripping his brother’s head off. Not a very charitable thought, but he’d always made a horrible priest. And besides, this was like, the 30th wrong turn Castiel had made. It would try Jesus’s patience, but no, Gabriel couldn’t drive in the first place because Cassie was as territorial as a mother lion when it came to his stupid pimpmobile.

Castiel made a grumpy noise in the back of his throat and turned off the highway on Exit 74, before making a highly illegal U-turn and heading in the direction Gabriel indicated. Luckily for them, no one was around to see it. Thank God for the little mercies.

“Tell me again, Gabriel, where exactly are we going?” his little brother asked, squinting his lapis-lazuli blue eyes at the open road and blue sky. Gabriel gave him a disbelieving look, and an even more disbelieving sigh.

“We, oh directionally-challenged brother mine, are going to…Lawrence Drive, which is home to exactly two buildings: Singer’s Salvage, which is not where we're headed, and a quaint little farmhouse, which is apparently demon central right now. Now, if you’ll just _listen_ to me, we’ll get there before sunset,” Gabriel groused. He found that people generally didn’t like priests to stay overnight, even if they’d been asked to make a housecall. Somehow there was an expectation for them to just…be done before sunset, like they were werewolves or something.

Eventually, they did get there. It was a cute little place, not exactly Martha Stewart material, but something you might see on _Little House on the Prairie_. A few cows and horses milled about but generally took no notice of the new visitors. The gorgeous Australian Shepherd, on the other hand, was a different matter altogether. He got up immediately, barking his little head off at the newcomers. Gabriel crouched. Castiel might have a soft spot for cats, but Gabriel was a dog person through and through.

“Hey there, big guy,” he said, admiring the intelligent look on the Shepherd’s face, but from a safe distance. “I have a little one at home that would love to meet you sometime after we cure one of your daddies.” The Aussie barked twice, baring his teeth. Intruders were not welcome, and the dog was fiercely protective of his two owners.

“Riot!” Gabriel and the dog looked at the front door at the same time, just in time to see a 6 foot 4 Adonis make tracks over to the two priests and the Aussie. “Down boy. These are priests, and they’re here to fix Dean.” Gabriel slowly stood up, while the Shepherd whined, and heeled at the gorgeous guy’s foot.

Gabriel didn’t realize he’d forgotten how to breathe until Castiel kicked him in the shin, which rebooted his thinking process. They were here to perform an exorcism, not for him to climb this man like a fucking redwood tree. Again, not a very holy thought, but considering that God seemed to have lifted the guy right out of his and probably several other people’s wet dreams, he figured he was allowed a couple.

Sam Winchester looked up at the two priests and grinned. Gabriel nearly averted his eyes. Of course this kid had to have a smile to match his looks. And _dimples_.

“You guys are the priests, right? My name is Sam Winchester, like I said on the phone,” he said, holding out a enormous hand, which Castiel and Gabriel both shook in turn.

“That’s right. I’m Father Castiel, and this is my colleague, Father Gabriel. I just wanted to say that I’m very sorry this has happened to you, Sam. Demonic possession is rarely a…pleasant thing, for anyone.” Sam’s smile dimmed, terraforming that beautiful face from welcome to sad acceptance.

"Yeah. It’s…it’s tough to see him like this. He’s, he’s my brother, y’know? He’s been through so much, and, and he’s a good person. Best person I’ve ever met," Sam said, and his tone left no doubt in Gabriel’s mind that if asked, Sam wouldn’t bat one eyelash before dealing away his soul, if that was what it took to bring his brother back to him.

“Well, we’ll do our best to mojo your brother alright again,” Gabriel said, finally regaining the capacity for speech. Sam’s smile brightened again.

“Thank you. Oh! Uh, I’m forgetting my manners. Would you like to come in? It’s, uh, not much, but it’s all we’ve got,” he said, gesturing to the house and the open door. The brothers stepped in, Sam and Riot (now friendly and curious, satisfied that his humans were not in danger) bringing up the rear. The house was sparsely furnished, as if the occupants weren’t familiar with the idea of having their own space, and they weren’t sure what to put in it. “Make yourselves at home.” Castiel nodded, and plucked a Bible from the duffle bag.

“Gabriel, why don’t you set up while I go look at what we’re dealing with?” Castiel said, and Gabriel would have sworn on his mother's grave that his younger brother had a tiny lift to his mouth, which was Cas’s version of the giggles. Which left him with the beautiful, beautiful specimen that was Sam Winchester.

Gabriel started setting out all sorts of trinkets on the coffee table: holy water in several silver flasks, crucifixes, salt, consecrated iron, a couple Bibles with their original languages. While Castiel was better at Greek, Russian, and several other languages than he was (the smart little prick), Gabriel could belt out some mean Latin, and even some Enochian. It wasn’t often that he needed to use it, but some of the more tenacious demons that wouldn’t budge with the usual dissipated in a second.

Sam walked back into the living room as Gabriel was flipping the Bibles open to the right pages.

"That a lot of stuff for one demon," he noted, sitting down on a chair close to Gabriel, who cocked an eyebrow.

"And it’s aaall necessary, Sammy-boy," Gabriel said absently, squinting at the narrow, water-damaged Latin, so he missed the way that Sam’s nose bridge wrinkled a bit.

"Don’t call me Sammy," was all that he said.

* * *

Sam looked at the priest, who had returned to the faded Bible, mumbling under his breath in what sounded like a foreign language. He looked nothing like what Sam had been expecting. Granted, he and Dean had only ever driven by the church to stop by a diner or on their way to the local Farmer’s Market (every Tuesday and Thursday), but even so.

Sam remembered, from the days he spent in the backseat of the Impala, that they used to go to Pastor Jim’s church a lot. Pastor Jim was one of the warmest people he knew, with a calm air and a soft, low voice and seemingly infinite patience. Father Castiel was similar to him. Sam thought the two might’ve been friends.

Father Gabriel was an entirely different matter, to the point that calling him “Father”, even in his head, felt a little weird. Every move he made, even when he’d just been standing outside of Sam’s house, was full of energy. He seemed as if he’d be more at home with something that would have him moving around at all times, like an energetic corgi. But here he was, worrying pages of a Bible that Sam was fairly sure some museum curators would happily murder for.

Gabriel seemed to have sensed him staring, because he looked up and twisted his thin lips into a wry smirk.

“Like something you see, gigantor?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. Sam scoffed a little.

“Gigantor, really?” he asked. Ever since he’d hit high school and his genes had decided that it was a good idea to stretch him out four inches beyond the American average height, he’d been teased by every name in existence. Well, almost every, since “gigantor” was new for him. Gabriel shrugged, looking up at Sam with innocent eyes.

“Yes really. Tell me, is the weather really different up there?” he asked, gesturing around Sam’s head. Sam rolled his eyes.

“I can’t be that much taller than you, and besides, that’s such an overused line.”

“Can’t blame me for asking. Last time I was up that high, some poor girl’s cat decided to take up bird life.”

“Seriously? If we're talking about size, then aren’t you a little short to be performing exorcisms, _Father_?” This time, both of Gabriel’s eyebrows shot up.

“Aren’t you a little tall to be afraid of demons?” he shot back, putting the Bible down. Sam opened his mouth to snark right back at the smaller priest when he saw the slow curl of a smile on the pastor’s face. Oh.

“You’re distracting me,” Sam said abruptly. Gabriel’s face lit up, as if he was a teacher and Sam had just gotten a question right.

“Bingo!” he said, making a grand gesture like some game show host, before leaning forward, elbows on knees. “Give the boy a cigar and a blowtorch to light it with. Got it in one, Sam-I-Am. And don’t call me Father, it makes me itch. Gabriel’s good enough for Jesus, should be good for you.” Sam shook his head.

“But, why would you do that?” he asked, stroking Riot’s head when the dog bumped against his leg in a clear declaration that 5 minutes without being pet was definitely some form of animal cruelty. He doesn’t really get it. He sort of expected the priests to walk in, say a few things in some dead languages, and leave when Dean was cured. This was…different.

Gabriel shrugged.

“Well first of all, it’s not like in the movies, where we get to take one look at brother dearest and say, ah! It’s Pazuzu. Haven’t dug up any ancient relics that give us tingly spidey senses about them, either. Right now, what Cas is doing is basically talking to the demon, looking at its reactions, maybe reading some scripture, too. Different demons act differently, and they’ll react to things in different ways.” He paused and took a brief glance at Sam. It felt like the priest was sizing him up. “Anyway, I’ll save you the boring demon lecture and skip straight to your question. While he’s doing that, I set up the equipment and wait it out with the family. My shoulders’re a little short and bony to cry on, but most people seem to appreciate any kind of distraction, even if it’s a snarkfest with _moi_.” He wiggled his eyebrows and reached out to pet Riot, who quickly decided he very much liked this human. Sam was still digesting the monologue. He’d always been curious, even a little too curious for his own good and that had driven his father and older brother insane when he was little and “Why?” was his favorite sentence. He’d always had an itch to learn, which contributed to the dense bookshelves scattered around the house.

And now this itch had flared into a full-on rash (ew, Sam, that’s a _lovely_ ongoing metaphor you’ve got there). He leaned forward, mimicking Gabriel’s earlier posture. The priest raised an eyebrow at him, but he looked rather pleased with this turn of events.

“Tell me about demons.” Gabriel grinned and leaned forward as well, resting elbows on his knees.

“Alright. So the majority of demons are black-eyes. You say “Christo”, Latin for Jesus Christ, and bingo, built-in sunglasses. Black-eyes come in all sorts of colors and styles, you could have one to match your mood every day of the year. But they’re the grunts of the demon world, so a dab of holy water and a standard exorcism hands them an express return ticket straight to the Ninth Circle. No biggie there.

“Then you have your red-eyes. Ever been to a used car dealership and got hounded by someone you wanted to just spray with Borax? They’re like that. They love making deals, making wagers. They’re the financial sector of Hades, all nice smiles and genial looks and tiny print saying that should you not follow their instructions to the letter you get the long rope, short drop deal. Their currency is souls, and they know you’ve only got one to deal away.

“After that, you’ve got yellow-eyes. They’re rare as mermaids, but they pull _weight_. They can do some deals, too, but their terms are even more cutthroat than reds. What they like doing is working behind the scenes, so you don’t see them too often. Crafty as all get out, though.

“And then, and pray you’ll never have to meet them, there are―” Gabriel stopped, seeing Castiel stumble out of the room where Dean was, looking pale and visibly sweating.

“It’s a white-eyes,” he ground out, and Gabriel paled, too.

* * *

Castiel, while tempted to hover close to the place Gabriel and soon Sam Winchester would be, walked resolutely into the bedroom. He’d faced down countless demons already, and he felt quite confident that he’d be able to handle this one, as well.

The small room was quite clearly a study, perhaps for someone who worked from home, and sitting in the center of the room was a very attractive man in the middle of a crudely made devil’s trap. He silently thanked Sam Winchester for having the intelligence to ferret out as much information about demons in what little time that he could.

The man’s head turned from the crack in the wall he’d apparently been contemplating and looked at Castiel, cocking his head. A slow smile parted his lips, brilliant green eyes trained on the priest.

“Oh, looky here. Little Sam’s called in the cavalry,” the man said in a low, smooth, mocking voice that was a little nasally, with a lilt that could curdle milk. “At least the boy’s got good taste. You’re making my meatsuit all tingly, dear.” “Dean” licked his lips slowly, the way a large feline might when watching a herd of prey animals. Castiel was unmoved.

“Who are you?” he asked. He wanted to get a feel of the temperament of the demon before he started spitting out Christos and holy water, just in case it was a higher-up or a violent one. “Dean” chuckled.

“Well now, it wouldn’t be much fun if I just _told_ you, now would it?” The demon tutted, looking like a disappointed teacher. “Really now, what are they teaching you lads up in Bible camp? In my day, exorcists were something to be feared. Now, they’re just washed up, small town virgins.” The demon adopted a sympathetic expression that was as fake as the leather on his boots. “Poor, poor Castiel. The good son, the good little soldier. Your childhood was a mess, full of angry brothers and an absent father, busy grieving over the loss of your mother and having his little love affair with the bottle. A mediocre student, but they don’t need stellar grades to be men of cloth, no. You even dragged one of your brothers down with you.” Castiel was used to this, used to his life story being painted like this by countless demons. After a while, it just stopped getting to you. But now “Dean” put in a little twist. “You and I know that Gabriel, dear big brother Gabriel with his lovely affinity for Enochian, could go places, have a greater career than living and dying in a broken down shack of a church in the middle of nowhere.”

Castiel glared at the demon. He couldn’t think of any way that it could know about Gabriel’s fluency with the language of angels.

“What is this 'Enochian'?” he asked, opting for the safe route. Only a small handful of people in the world could speak the language, and almost none with any fluency, but maybe the demon was bluffing.

“Dean” threw back his head and laughed, a cruel sound that jarred with the kind-looking laugh lines around his eyes.

“Oh sweetheart,” he crooned. “Don’t play coy with me. I can read minds, you know. Besides, you know as well as I do that those little exorcisms you recite like the Pledge of Allegiance only send us back to hell. We talk, surprising as it is, or at least some of us do. Most demons down there don’t have two brain cells to rub together, but news has traveled down the fiery grapevine about Mr. Gabriel Collins and his little trick with the angelic language. I know quite a few who would love to hear him scream it.” He twisted Dean’s full lips into a leer. Castiel was shaken, but he did his best not to show it, even if the demon already knew. He tried a different track.

“Why are you possessing Dean Winchester?” Castiel figured that this demon liked to hear himself speak. If he could keep the questions coming, he might slip up and reveal some information.

If the demon heard him think that, he made no mention of it.

“What if I say, just because, hm?” The demon asked. “I mean, not every demon’s lucky enough to get a golden ticket to Wonka’s human world, and I wanted to spend my time in someone good looking.” Castiel’s lip curled.

“You and I both know that’s not it,” he growled. “You have 10 seconds to talk before my brother comes in with enough holy water to drown three of you in your own foul juices.” The demon chuckled.

“Oh Castiel. There are so many things you don’t know. It’s almost funny how sheltered you are. But then, we have been gone through such great pains to make sure that you meatsacks don’t hear about this. I mean, you poor apes probably wouldn’t be able to handle the enormity of what we’re going to unleash on your world. But this, this will be our magnum opus. A canvas full of organs and gore, and we’ll paint our legacy on it.”

Castiel narrowed his eyes, ignoring the demon’s mad laughter. The demon was definitely higher up in the ranks, because this wasn’t bluffing. This was the demon dangling the promise of information right in front of him, expecting him to go for it like a mouse after cheese.

“You haven’t given me an answer. Why Dean Winchester?” he persisted. “Dean” shook his head slowly.

“Can’t make me spill the beans that easy, priest. You’re going to have to _work_ for your answers here,” the demon practically giggled, and Castiel’s restraint snapped.

“Christo,” he growled, and the demon’s smile was wide as his eyes flickered a frightening milky white.

He scrambled backwards and towards the door. It didn’t matter if it made him look weak because all he could think about was the last time he faced down a white eyes and the whole house seemed too small and it took an eternity before he stumbled into the living room. He must have looked like a mess because Gabriel actually stopped talking when he saw him, expression falling from animated to actual concern, and Sam turned to look at him.

“It’s a white-eyes,” he said, and watched as Gabriel went ashen. He remembered, too.

“What? What’s a white-eyes?” Sam asked, but the look on his face said he had already guessed (wasn’t Gabriel giving him a run-down on the different types of demons? Castiel thought so, but the sound of blood pumping in his ears was too loud to be sure).

“Only the most powerful kind of demon we’ve ever run into,” Gabriel croaked, when he’d regained his voice. “Sadistic, arrogant bastards that killed our family, and nearly iced Cassie, too.” His hands shook as he ran them through his hair, and part of Castiel, the part that will eternally be the 6 year old with scraped knees and muddy shoes and odd love for bees, wanted to run and hide in Gabriel’s arms, close his eyes and pretend that demons were only horned men in picture books. But Castiel was so very aware that Gabriel was not nearly strong enough to support both of them anymore. 

They would have to exorcise it, somehow.

* * *

Silence reigned as Sam probably digested the fact that his brother was being possessed by one of the most evil things that the experienced priests knew about, while the other two thought of the last time a white-eyes had caught them.

Gabriel knew his hands were shaking, but he was helpless to stop it. Right now, all he could think about was the condemned Lincoln Village apartment building in Hartsville, South Carolina. The twisted bodies of his family in various positions of death (or near death because that white-eyed bitch didn’t even bother making a clean job of killing most of them, so he could hear Balthazar’s wheezing as they struggled to breathe around a throat that made ground meat look put together, and Ezekiel’s soft moans of pain as their stomach acid melted their organs), the blood sprays that decorated the ceiling and walls like a paintball war with only one color, the hoarse desperation in Michael’s voice as he and Lucifer covered for Gabriel as he made off with a wounded Castiel and a bleeding Gadreel.

He took a deep breath and clasped his hands together, resting his forehead on them. Gabriel wasn't the praying type, but they'd need all the help they could get so he sent a quick one up to wherever God was, asking for strength and guidance. When he looked up, Castiel and Sam still hadn’t moved.

“Cassie,” he started, but cleared his throat because it wavered. “Give me more details.” The professional part of him wanted to go over and look for himself, but he wasn’t sure he could’ve done that just then. And besides, Castiel was an amazing judge of character. They’d relied on his intuition several times, and it had never turned out to be wrong yet.

Castiel jumped a little, and sat down on the couch next to Gabriel.

“Well, Dean Winchester seems to be fit and sound of body, if not in mind. I think he would stand a little shorter than Sam,” he said, and Gabriel cursed softly. The last white-eyes they’d fought had been in the body of a **_5_** year old. He shuddered to think what kind of havoc they could wreck in the body of a fit adult. “The demon seems to have a strong hold on him―there is little to no indication of the original personality from our admittedly brief encounter. He’s also hinted at there being a plan. Being a white-eyes, I suspect that he is in the know and is most likely spearheading it, much like the way a general might take the front lines to boost morale and ensure his orders are followed. He mentioned that the plan would end in a large number of human casualties, and it would be their ‘magnum opus’.” He hesitated, before speaking up again, but slower, as if unsure of himself. “Gabriel…he also said that he knows of your proficiency with Enochian.”

Gabriel froze. Out of his entire career, he’d used Enochian spells only once, and it wasn’t even on the white-eyed motherfucker. It had been a yellow-eyes who’d nearly killed Castiel, and he’d ripped into him without thinking, casting an old spell that he’d memorized a while back and burned him out of the vessel, killing him in the process. Maybe one of the demon's companions had witnessed it, or maybe the powerful spell sent shockwaves that could be felt throughout Heaven and Hell.

He would’ve loved to go over and show the bastard just how “proficient” he was with Enochian, but he wasn’t sure that any of the spells he memorized would work with a white-eyes, nor that it would ensure Dean’s life.

He looked over at Sam, who seemed devastated by Cas’s description of his brother. Of course. If Cas had been like that, Gabriel wasn’t sure exactly what he would do, but it would’ve involved copious amounts of alcohol. In fact, he’s strongly considering calling up Michael and Lucifer and asking them for help―

No. His brothers could continue their homoerotic and vaguely incestual love affair (that’s what he called their unhealthy codependency, at least when they weren’t in the room), because the minute he called them they’d be on his back about “not being a good example to Castiel” and “showing weakness in front of the civilians”, but most of all they’d both remember what happened last time. Michael would look at him with concerned eyes and Lucifer would grip his shoulders too tightly and they’d insist that we’ve got it, little brother, we’ll handle this and he’d be so afraid that they _wouldn’t_.

So he’d handle of this with Castiel. Gabriel was determined to return Dean Winchester back to his brother, even if it meant he had  to let the demon go. And for the record, this went beyond his mild flirtations with Sam. It was because he couldn’t stand by and see another family get torn apart by these assholes again.

He hauled himself up, feeling Cassie and Sam’s eyes following him, and bent over the living room table.

"Alright, Castiel," he said, and his brother stiffened instinctively. The only time he was Castiel to Gabriel was when the older sibling was dead serious. "I’m thinking holy water, salt and scripture. The iron and crucifixes are a bit touch and go, since we’ve already got him cornered and I’m not going in with that, for one. Go ahead and reinforce the trap with Latin, too. I want that thing more airtight than the Pentagon’s asshole." Castiel caught the Sharpie Gabriel tossed at him and nodded. "White-eyes have a habit of jailbreaking devil traps," he explained to Sam. "Shaking the house, turning on water faucets, if it can make a hole in the trap the demon will exploit it. Luckily for us, we’ve got a few spells that should negate his abilities. We’re gonna try out a normal exorcism on your brother, see if that’s gonna work on him. I wouldn’t pin too much hope on it though, since this is the second time we’ve actually run into one, but luckily we’ve got a few other exorcisms saved for rainy days." He brandished the old bible, and snagged a canteen of holy water. 

The two priests started for the study until Sam spoke up.

"Should…can I help?" he asked quietly, worrying his hands. Gabriel paused, and Castiel turned to look at him.

"It’s not advisable," Castiel started to say, but something possessed (haha how funny lol) Gabriel.

"Yeah," he said, but held up a hand to stop Sam as he bent to grab a can of holy water. "But. You’re listening to us. If we say book it, you’re leaving the room as soon as physically possible, capiche?" Sam nodded slowly, and followed them in.

The demon looked up the moment they crossed the threshold, and grinned.

"Oh, if it isn’t the beloved son," "Dean" purred. "Oh, but wait. I’m mixing you up with your brothers. Poor little Gabriel’s always played fourth fiddle, even to his little brother. Even when it came to killing them." Sam jumped a little, but Gabriel and Castiel could have carved their expressions from stone. They wore away a little, but not much. "Oh, I know. They didn’t actually die, but your cousins, well, they’re doing the dance down here." The demon gestured to the floorboards. "We were so excited to get a few Collins. Very prestigious name down there. So we may have…overdone it a little.” The demon smirked.

“That doesn’t matter now,” Gabriel said, barely able to keep from the temptation of walking over the devil’s trap and stabbing the thing until it was unrecognizable. Of course, he couldn’t do that. He had to remember that there was someone trapped inside, screaming for help. “All that matters is that we’re going to send your fat ass straight back to Hell.”

* * *

Sam wanted to go back into that room. He also really, really didn’t.

“Oh really? Tell me, does that help you sleep at night?” the demon jeered. “Little Gabriel―” Gabriel cut him off with a rather vicious spray of holy water. “Dean” yelled, the water hissing off of him in clouds of steam. Sam made a small, pained noise, but Castiel paused in his work to strengthen the devil’s trap to put a hand out to keep him from walking into the circle.

“Holy water only burns the demon,” he said calmly, returning back to his work. “Dean will be fine once we’ve exorcised the demon.” Sam wanted to grab them, shake the priests until they reacted because how could they be so calm when his brother was screaming? He looked over at Gabriel, but the previous mirth and animation on his face had frozen over, and the look on the older priest’s faces was one of the scariest he’d seen in a long time. Because looking at him, he could see grief, fear, anger, but most of all he could see an utter detachment to Dean’s suffering. It was a look that nearly made Gabriel look inhuman, like it would be nothing to him if he decided to reach over and rip Dean apart.

“So, cupcake,” Gabriel said, popping his syllables in a way that should have been ~~_cute_~~ amusing, but came out chillingly cruel, like a bully on a playground taunting his target. “How’re you feeling? Lemme guess: not too hot. But hey! Soon we’ll have you out of that oh-so-vulnerable vessel, and back down to Hell.” He smiled thinly, picking up one of the containers of salt and pouring a generous amount into the bottle. He recapped it and shook the mixture, while the demon looked on with creepy fascination.

“Oh, my,” the demon purred. “Quite kinky for a priest, aren’t you?” Gabriel replied by splashing the salty water in his face. Sam winced as the demon yelled, louder and longer this time, but dissolved back into laughter. “You’re creative. I like it. We really could use someone with imagination down there. It’s been ages since I’ve managed to get my hands on someone with real _potential_. Well, let me say that I just can’t _wait_ for you to come down to Hell. We’ll have a lot of fun together, you and I.”

“What is your name,” Gabriel demanded. The command seemed a bit out of place, but Sam supposed that there had to be a reason behind it. He felt very confused about the whole process because the websites he’d browsed all recommended that he just leave the nitty-gritty details of exorcisms to the ‘experts’, and only gave him the bare bones to work with, like the crooked devil’s trap he’d drawn. On the other hand, it was starting to get easier for him to wrap his head around disassociating Dean from the demon, especially as it abandoned imitating Dean’s mannerisms in favor of battling it out with the priests.

“Is that what you wanted, darling? Well, you can call me Alastair. Since that is my name and all. Hell’s finest torturer, at your service,” Alastair said, making a sweeping bow that had mockery in every muscle twitch. “Could’ve asked me before we hit second base, although it is, hmm, _exciting_ that you want to jump in so quickly.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Gabriel said, motioning for Castiel to hurry up. “Lucky for you, then, because we’re going 0 to 60 about now.” Sam watched Castiel stand up and dust himself off, before picking up the Bible he’d set down and flipping it open to one of several dog-eared pages.

“Wait on my signal, Sam,” Gabriel ordered. “Your job is to make sure he doesn’t try anything funny. I suggest putting salt in that holy water, and don’t worry about using too much. I’ve got plenty more in the duffle and the car. Just spray him down if he starts chanting anything that’s not English, or tries to make a run for it.” Sam nodded, trying to disguise the fact that he was shaking in his worn out sneakers. This was definitely not his area of expertise.

“ _Regna terrae, cantate Deo, psallite Domino,_ ” Castiel began, but paused when Gabriel put a hand out.

“Actually, I changed my mind,” he said, not talking to Cas or Sam, but directing his words to the demon. Alastair cocked an eyebrow as he sat down on the floor, looking curious. “I want answers from you. What are you up here for?”

“Oh, now we _are_ getting much more interesting, love,” Alastair said, giggling a little. “Tell you what. I’ll give you something free of charge, since you’re _such_ a bag of tricks.” He leaned in, as close as he could with the devil’s trap still in place. “I usually don’t come up topside, as I’m sure you’ve guessed from your little powwow over in the living room. I don’t like the climate up here, it’s too dry and, mm, bloodless. But anyway, my personal preferences aside, I only came up for a bit of nasty business.” His eyes flickered over to Sam, who started a little. “Hell business.” He pulled back, and made another elaborate bow.

Sam frowned. What kind of Hell business involved him and his brother? They’d never done anything to deserve it, as far as he knew. Sure, there had been things that had definitely toed the line (a few house squats and credit card scams and shady deals from when Dad was still dragging them around, maybe a couple things that Sam doesn’t really want to talk about right now because he wasn’t really proud of them) but after settling down and just living a relatively normal life he’d started to dare hope for Heaven.

“Oh? What kind of important Hell business would involve two guys from the boonies? No offense there, but don’t you guys usually gun for, oh, I dunno, US ambassadors or powerful movie actresses? Why these two?” Gabriel asked, and if it weren’t for the graveness of their situation Sam might’ve spared a grin for the pop culture references the priest kept dropping. He thought that Dean probably would’ve enjoyed it. Instead, Alastair laughed again.

"Oh dear me, no. You see, we’re above your petty human notions of power and prestige. We like to stick to tradition, and these boys have old blood in their veins. Ancient, powerful stuff. Not to mention that their old man has been a cactus in our side for quite a long time, although by Dean-o’s account Daddy bailed out years ago, hmm?" Alastair cocked Dean’s head, tapping his temple. “Don’t worry, though. I’m not here for information about dear old Dad. I’m here for this boy.” He grinned slowly and got up with all the grace of a predator ready to spring for a meal, ignoring the shouts of both priests.

“ _Spiritus in mundus, un glorum suarum umitite palatum iram, domine,_ ” Alastair intoned with what could only be called a demonic grin, and wind blew inside the house. Anything Sam did would be nigh on useless, he thought, because the center of the sudden whirlwind was the devil’s trap, and Alastair’s voice rose as he continued to chant. The foundations creaked and Riot began barking his poor head off, and whining in between. Sam spared a few seconds to despair over the state of his door after the Aussie worked it over.

“Shit―Cassie! Sam! Get down!” Gabriel shouted, although Sam noticed he made no move to take his own advice. The smaller man started shouting harsh, powerful syllables that Sam could feel down to his bones, like the bass at a rock concert.

The house shuddered under the clash of power, and the wind peaked as the walls and floor began to crack, and great swath of white light obliterated the scene from eyes mortal and supernatural.

* * *

_It’s dark. Of course it is, because demons are melodramatic assbutts. Yes, at the wizened age of 11 Castiel knows that demons do exist, just when most of his classmates have already begun to let go of the idea. He also knows the word asshole and asshat from his older family members but he kinda like how ‘assbutt’ sounds. Plus it gets funny reactions from his brothers and cousins, which is always nice. Especially Uriel, because he doesn’t say anything, just makes praying and pleading gestures at the ceiling. Once, when he was still learning words and meanings, Uriel told him to say “Uriel is the funniest person in the family” to prank him._

_Years later, Castiel carved the phrase into the wooden cross that marked his grave._

_Uriel isn’t the only person they lose to Lilith. Balthazar and Ezekiel and his beautiful big sister Raphael, all die too, and they bury them in the plot behind Uncle Joshua’s house._

_Sometimes when Luci and Dad fight, Castiel can hear them, and sometimes Luci shouts that if Dad hadn’t insisted on bringing the kids along to see a high-powered demon being taken down, they never would have died._

_Castiel hates Lilith for that, because even as Death is a close companion to a demon hunter, his cousins never really got a chance at life. Balthazar never got to go to Vegas and have as much fun as he liked, Rachel never got to be a policewoman like she wanted, Raphael never got to become a doctor and travel around to help people._

_And most of all, his family was never the same after they died. Aunt Naomi never got over both of her children’s deaths, and she froze inside, becoming even more strict and unyielding. Anna ran away, and when they found her she was possessed by a demon. Uncle Zach died soon after he exorcised the spirit from her dead body, even though Dad and Aunt Naomi sometimes said in very small voices that it had been a low level demon and Uncle Zach really should have been able to finish her off without too much trouble. And Uncle Metatron stopped reading them stories when they went over to his house. If he did go into his study, he was reading long books with little text by authors with weird names like Nietzsche and Plato. Gadreel stopped talking so much, but he was much, much angrier and more reckless than he’d ever been before. Only Uncle Joshua and Samandriel stayed the same, although Uncle Josh was a lot quieter and sadder, and Sammy was too little to know better._

_Castiel can’t remember when he decided he wanted to go into the clergy. Their family had never been very religious, but somehow between earmarking exorcisms and highlighting passages on demons he got invested in the faith that he read about in the interim between calls. And, he said to convince his family, he could have access to millennia of research on demons. He’d already started the process, going to their local church and being active there._

_And if, on the day that he finishes packing up to go to seminary school, Gabriel shows up and announces that he’s going too, Castiel wants to protest because Gabriel has so many talents that he could build a much better future in, Gabriel laughs it off and says that he can’t let his little brother waste away in some musty catacombs without having someone to take care of him. Castiel sees, not for the first time, a ghost of the expression Gabriel had when he carried both him and Gadreel out of the apartments, so he lets his older brother join him in the passenger’s seat, and Gabriel reaches over to turn the knob on the radio to some obnoxious pop song_

“―tiel. Father? Father Castiel!” he heard someone shout, and something that was gripping his shoulder shook as he roused. An unfamiliar figure loomed over him, and he tried to jolt upright, although two large hands kept him down. “It’s alright, it’s me, Father! I’m Sam.” As he blinked to clear his vision, it focused onto Sam Winchester. The younger man broke into a relieved smile, although his eyes were worried.

"Oh thank God," Sam said, gently helping the priest upright. "You were out for a little while, but I don’t think you’ve got a concussion." Cas nodded slowly, wincing at the throb in his head.

"What, what about Gabe?" he asked hoarsely, looking around. Sam winced, and stood to move to the side and reveal the prone form of the older priest. Castiel jumped up, ignoring the way his head swam, and knelt down next to Gabriel. His older brother seemed to have been thrown off his feet, and his nose was bleeding, although it seemed as though he’d been knocked away by the conflicting spells rather than any actual incantations. Castiel mentally ran through the list if possible injuries his brother could have, and got up.

"We need to get him to a hospital. What about Dean? Did the demon…?" He trailed off as he got a better look around the room, which was rather predictably empty.

“D―I mean, Alastair left. I was closer to the door, so I saw him walk out of the trap and just…vanish,” Sam said distractedly, looking torn between running out the door to find his brother and worrying over Gabriel. “Is…is he going to be okay? He got knocked back by some sort of…magical misfire, I guess? He hit his head pretty hard, he might have a concussion.”

“I believe it would be prudent to put him in a hospital…I apologize, Sam. It is our job to exorcise demons and we let him go. But I do promise that once Gabriel is well, we will continue after him as best we can,” Castiel said. He felt familiar guilt eating away at him, even more so than the last exorcism that they did, where it turned out that the boy had been dead already. But Gabriel was here and injured, and Castiel knew that neither of them would be ready to give the case the attention necessary until he was healed. “If it helps, Sam, I doubt Alastair will kill Dean. He mentioned that you both are valuable resources to their plan, so it’s likely he’ll keep Dean alive.” Sam nodded slowly.

“I’m not…well, it’d be a lie to say that I’m not frustrated, but I…I just want my brother back,” he said. “And if you guys are going after him, I want in.” Castiel slowly nodded. He doubted that Sam would stay behind even if they insisted, and he’d rather have him in their company to help rather than have to worry about Sam getting himself killed thanks to lack of knowledge and experience.

And if he knew very well that Gabriel liked Sam, well, the little brother in him reveled in all the potential blackmail material.

But that was marginally less important right now, so with Sam’s help he got Gabriel into the back seat with his head on Sam’s lap in case of anything, and their duffle into the trunk and drove off to the nearest hospital.

In the days ahead, there would be frustration and grief and anger and desperation, and he absently made a mental note to take a few days off from the parish. Gabriel’s injuries didn’t seem to be very life-threatening―it was the magical backlash that he worried about, but other than that he had little doubt that his older brother would be back on his feet within a week, ready to annoy him with candy wrappers and embarrassing stories and audaciously flirting with Sam Winchester.

Somehow, he had the feeling that they were running headlong into something much, much bigger than they could imagine.

* * *

**Bonus:**

_Dean wasn’t sure how long he’d been knocked out, but he felt like he’d had a nightmare, something about watching as something that masqueraded as him bit out insults to Sammy, and there was a cute priest who got scared away by him, and another one that looked at him with chilling anger that made him feel tiny._

_Something felt so…real about it, like he was reliving a memory rather than dreaming it up. But that couldn’t happen, right? For one, he would never say those things to Sammy…_

“Wake up, Dean. It’s bad manners to sleep in class,” a darkly slick voice said, far too close to him to be comfortable. He jolted awake, drinking in his situation. He was strapped down to something that looked like the table for death row inmates when they got the lethal injection that he’d seen on TV. An older man leered down at him, toying with a small scalpel. Something about his face made it seem like it should be set in a kindly expression, but something else was making the smile twist into something sadistic.

“Do you like my outfit? He was a pediatrician, always kept a pack of Band-aids and candy for the little tykes that visited him. And he has the most precise hands, too. I’m sure you’ll grow to appreciate them,” he purred, using the scalpel to lightly draw designs on Dean’s exposed chest. Not hard enough to break skin, but just enough so that Dean was deeply aware of how sharp the instrument was. He tried to struggle out of his bonds, but they held tight.

“Where am I, you son of a bitch?” he bit out as he tried to remember his dad’s half-drunk lessons that he’d given whenever the notion struck him. John Winchester had been a real piece of work after his wife had died, and he’d raved to Dean on and on about demons and he swore up and down that Mom had died because one of them slashed her guts, instead of the house fire that nearly consumed them, as well.

Dean was starting to really regret not listening his dad. In his defense, every “lead” that his dad had come up with ended up being red herrings and dead ends, and no “source” he’d talked to was half-credible. But he could have paid better attention to the man’s lectures on being captured.

“As much as I’d love to say you’re in Hell, sweetheart, you’re not. But it is as close as I could make it. My name is Alastair, and I’ll be your host for tonight…and for the foreseeable future,” the old man said cheerfully, eyes flickering to a milky white with no iris, no pupil. Goosebumps rose on Dean’s skin as his flight-or-fight response kicked in, although there was nowhere to run, no way to fight. He struggled to keep his game face on, although he was terrified. Hell, his old man might’ve turned out to actually be right, because either this Alastair roofied him to Timbuktu, or he wasn’t human at all. The old man looked far too satisfied with Dean’s reaction. “Oh good. You’re learning well, Dean, and I have _high_ expectations for you,” he purred, and pushed the scalpel in all the way. “It is a stroke of luck for both of us that I know a few preservative spells. Don’t worry about a thing. No matter how many major arteries I cut, or how many times I remove your heart or smash your brain, I’ll fix you back up and put you back together again. We’ll have _lots_ of fun together, my boy.”

Dean screamed, and didn’t stop screaming until he passed out half-an-hour later, after Alastair had painstakingly cut his skin open and severed tendons to give them both clear, unobstructed views of Dean’s quivering organs.

His last thought before oblivion was of Sammy.

**Author's Note:**

> The verses Castiel was looking at in the beginning, Matthew 8:5-13, which alongside Luke 7:1-10 discuss Jesus’s meeting with a gay Centurion, who asks him to heal his lover. Here are some links that discuss these verses: ([x](http://www.gaychristian101.com/Gay-Centurion.html)) ([x](http://www.wouldjesusdiscriminate.org/biblical_evidence/gay_couple.html))
> 
> The location of the condemned apartment complex that quite a few of the Collins died in comes from this news story: ([x](http://www.wbtw.com/story/28399526/city-of-hartsville-seeks-to-tear-down-condemned-apartments))
> 
> I probably spent more time looking up stuff on non-denominational churches, exorcism movies, the gay Centurion, and farms than I really should have.
> 
> I also spent more time worrying over whether or not to add in Gabriel’s exposition about demons than I should’ve.
> 
> Lucifer, Raphael, and Gabriel were all adopted. Michael and Castiel are the only two biological children of Chuck and Becky Collins. (I therefore leave the nature of Michael and Lucifer’s relationship up to the reader).
> 
> I was so, so tempted to let Gabriel and Alastair bounce off of each other for a long time. Their styles of speaking are so similar, I have a feeling that even though they’d be simultaneously disgusted by each other, they’d probably have fun bantering. Thankfully my sanity nipped that in the bud before I could become even more long-winded.
> 
> I could never really figure out within the bounds of SPN-canon why Alastair, ostensibly as powerful as Lilith, could be killed so easily by Sam like he was a regular black-eyes. Assuming that all white-eyes (disregarding Samhain because he’s got black pupils, which may represent a deficiency in terms of pure power), the only assumptions I can make is that a) he was weakened by both his capture by angels, torture by Dean, and fight with Castiel, and b) he put less effort into raw power/strength (which Lilith displayed by destroying a police station with white light, being impervious to holy water, being able to burn things by touch, being the Queen of the Crossroads, and being able to manipulate demons in and out of meatsuits). This, of course, pretends that Sam’s power level wasn’t a demonstration of [As Strong As They Need to Be](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StrongAsTheyNeedToBe), and Alastair’s death wasn’t a variation of [The Worf Effect](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheWorfEffect). I could go on and on about the differences between the two white-eyes we’ve seen in the series, but suffice to say that I intended to express some of my views about Alastair’s abilities in this fic. I hope they came across.  
> ...I spend too much time of TVTropes, is that obvious?
> 
> It physically pains me to think of Sam Winchester going to a community college, or dropping out of law school. The first season hurt because I had to watch Sam ignore his potential future and connections, and as a highschool senior I’ve nearly become allergic to thinking about going anywhere else but an actual college and staying there for four years.
> 
> I love Riot more than I love a lot of people in real life.


End file.
